John passed away during the early morning hours of February
12, 2002 as a result of injuries sustained in an automobile accident the prior
evening.

This webpage, which soon will be greatly expanded by contributions
from his family and friends, is dedicated to his memory.

John Michael Ellsbury was born August 30, 1984, in Amory, Mississippi,
to Michael M. Ellsbury and Susan (née Hansmire) Ellsbury. He lived his first
six years in Starkville, Mississippi, where he attended kindergarten and the
first grade at Sudduth Elementary School. He moved with his parents to Brookings,
South Dakota in June 1991. John attended Hillcrest Elementary School, Brookings
Middle School, and was a senior at Brookings High School. John enjoyed spending
time with his friends, and he loved his dog, Arca. He was a member of First
United Methodist Church, Boy Scouts, Aeromates and the Academy of Model Aeronautics.
In his early years, he played the piano, violin and trombone. He had many interests,
including ice hockey, kneeboarding, water and snow skiing, and computers. He
was learning to fly a radio-controlled helicopter he had built. When at the
family farm in Nebraska, he enjoyed cutting wood and spraying weeds. His future
plans included majoring in computer engineering at the University of Nebraska.

John's #33 hockey jersey and a picture of him have been placed on permanent
display as a memorial in the ice arena at Brookings.

The following essay was written by John the day before he died.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…" from Charles
Dickens' Tale of Two Cities could be no more accurate and appropriate for our
modern times. The quote is universal. No argument can hold solid against it,
as its reasoning is backed by every aspect of humanity.

Our society has been advancing steadily since the beginning; such
is the nature of evolution. Technology stands most obvious as a "best of times".
We can communicate near instantly to anywhere on the planet. We can travel anywhere
within a day and with no physical strain. The moon and other bodies beyond our
atmosphere are within our reach, and where man cannot go his mechanical creations
can travel instead. Our average lifespan is as high as ever, and the "quality"
of our lives, if measurable, has surely increased over the years. In general,
people feel secure (in America and most major countries). Our daily activities
are relatively convenient. Freedom is a high priority for many countries, and
opportunities exist everywhere. With that freedom comes diversity, something
with many strong values.

Freedom comes not without sacrifice. More freedom for one means less for another.
Diversity has its downsides. Parts of our world are good, but many are bad.
Complexity may be necessary for many things today, but with complexity comes
error. Often, the more we have to gain, the more we have to lose. Worldwide
complexity brings conflict, and conflict can bring pain. Hate unfortunately
flourishes in our diverse world. Hate of people, hate of ideas, and hate of
all things is one of the ugliest faces of humanity. Crime is an issue everywhere.
The technology used for security can also be used against it. Violence and war
still continue around the world, and the potential for such problems is exorbitantly
greater than before, particularly in nuclear capacity. Our society literally
has the ability to destroy itself, a very unsettling concept. Still with the
comforts of technology comes laziness and naivety. People tend to forget "what
falls through the cracks". Specifically, areas where development is centuries
behind are ignored by those people in better-suited countries. This ignorance
is underestimated, and one day it may prove our downfall.

There are too many positives and negatives for any one human to understand,
and many more issues fall in the middle. Because of this immense concept both
best and worst can be used to describe our world. With no way to measure either
way, all that is known is that both good and bad exist. One may focus on one
or the other, playing the optimist or the pessimist. But really, the wisest
position is to accept both, but to see to it that our aim is always to the best.
This defines humanity. As long as imperfection exists, the potential for
good will stand solid.